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There is something special about Craster's bloodline because the Others accepted his boys.

They also accepted his sheep... so are they also Stark descendants?

"For the baby, not for me. If it's a girl, that's not so bad, she'll grow a few years and he'll marry her. But Nella says it's to be a boy, and she's had six and knows these things. He gives the boys to the gods. Come the white cold, he does, and of late it comes more often. That's why he started giving themsheep, even though he has a taste for mutton. Only now the sheep's gone too. Next it will be dogs, till . . ." She lowered her eyes and stroked her belly.

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One thing that gives me pause in thinking the WW's are humans turned into something else is what happens when they die. When Sam stabs the WW with the dragonglass it just melts into a puddle. It just seems like there should be some trace left if it was a human to begin with. But I suppose I could be completely off base with that.

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"For the baby, not for me. If it's a girl, that's not so bad, she'll grow a few years and he'll marry her. But Nella says it's to be a boy, and she's had six and knows these things. He gives the boys to the gods. Come the white cold, he does, and of late it comes more often. That's why he started giving them sheep, even though he has a taste for mutton. Only now the sheep's gone too. Next it will be dogs, till . . ." She lowered her eyes and stroked her belly.

The dogs are Starks as well it seems. Makes sense since dogs are easy to warg and some Starks are wargs, dogs are also kin to direwolves and Starks have a direwolf as sigil and occasionally as house pet. We are onto something here...

5 minutes ago, aryagonnakill#2 said:

One thing that gives me pause in thinking the WW's are humans turned into something else is what happens when they die. When Sam stabs the WW with the dragonglass it just melts into a puddle. It just seems like there should be some trace left if it was a human to begin with. But I suppose I could be completely off base with that.

Good point, I always assumed that WW are a different race/people while wights are transformed dead humans. It doesn't explain though why the WW have something against humans though.

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@Black Crow Very good analogy with the sin eater. I've never really thought about it but it makes sense, if Craster is seen as such an abomination then why hasn't he been destroyed? The NW doesn't dispose of him because he provides intel and shelter occasionally, but what about the Free Folk? He seemingly provides no service for them to tolerate his existence. Unless of course he does provide some service - one which they are unwilling to provide for themselves.

One could argue that the Free Folk just don't care enough about his abominable ways to bother with killing him, but they must also know that he aids the NW. This makes him a liability and there must be a reason that the Lord of Bones (or any other brutal leader among the Free Folk) has allowed him to live all this time. Craster must therefore provide more benefit than detriment to the Free Folk ... that or GRRM didn't think through the secondary and tertiary effects of Craster's behaviors. But I'm inclined to think that it's the former.

Edited December 5, 2016 by Red Man Racey

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There couldn't really have been someone betraying the Nightswatch to become the first other. The Nightswatch was formed to fight the others, so must have been formed after the Others came into existence.

That was sloppy proof-reading on my part, I meant to say that I think the Night's King was the first of the Others to have had children and begun their breeding.

Which is my theory, anyway.

TBH I didn't read your spoiler.

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That doesn't make sense. By your logic no bloodline is unique. The Valyrians had colonized the whole of Essos, the First men and the Andals were from Essos and so on. If anything the Iron Borns’ blood is common too since there were way too many children with rock wives and salt wives.

I have always had a feeling that king's blood or any other "special" blood is bullshit, mostly because lords get around with lots of common women. Olenna Tyrell says as much as every family in the reach can claim descent from the gardner kings on their female line. Since no one can say or quantify exactly how far from a king you need to be for king's blood, it means that literally everyone in westeros has kingsblood to some degree.

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One thing that gives me pause in thinking the WW's are humans turned into something else is what happens when they die. When Sam stabs the WW with the dragonglass it just melts into a puddle. It just seems like there should be some trace left if it was a human to begin with. But I suppose I could be completely off base with that.

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Quite possibly. But if you work in animal husbandry you keep all the breeding females but you don't need more than one breeding male and that seems to be how it operates here. The obvious point is that when Craster dies the breeding program ends so it would have made sense from the Others to allow or force Craster to keep one son.

The fact that they don't and aren't too bothered about his bloodline perpetuating itself beyond his death seems to show that he is not in fact significant at all and it's merely opportunism on the part of the WW. The set-up is the easiest way for them to acquire human children rather than the essential way to acquire the "special" children they are alleged to so desperately need.

Agreed. Craster shows off to the NW that they ought to get with the gods like him, to be safe.

But in aCoK he's out of sheep already. We learn from Gilly that if he has no son to "sacrifice" he gives them "sheep" (and yeah, I'm hoping for an Ice Sheep posse ) By then Jon is already noticing how Ghost has problems in finding food in the wild (the wild animals are being wighted). The sheep are gone and there's not much prey to hunt in the woods anymore either (that Craster does in fact partly rely on hunting for sustenance is made clear by the bear skull at the gateposts. One might have a "tame" bear-cub, but not for long. And there's no way you can domesticate them). Apart from that Craster still has pigs and dogs running around in aCoK. In Sam's chapter at Craster's in aSoS - no more pigs and no mention of dogs anymore either.

Craster is a niggard and lets the NW starve while they shelter with him in aSoS, but he's indeed running into food issues. He's actually relieved and happy when he has a son. This means that after the sheep he's been sacrificing dogs and pigs to the WW, and his secret larder is only filled with some of it.

This shows that the WW actually don't care about preserving Craster and his wives. They wighted the area clean of wild animals and they came back more frequently to Craster's, satisfied with him giving his sheep, dogs and pigs to them. Craster and his wives and daughters just would take a longer time to die, because they'd have been starved out in the course of a few months if the mutiny hadn't happened.

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@Black Crow Very good analogy with the sin eater. I've never really thought about it but it makes sense, if Craster is seen as such an abomination then why hasn't he been destroyed? The NW doesn't dispose of him because he provides intel and shelter occasionally, but what about the Free Folk? He seemingly provides no service for them to tolerate his existence. Unless of course he does provide some service - one which they are unwilling to provide for themselves.

One could argue that the Free Folk just don't care enough about his abominable ways to bother with killing him, but they must also know that he aids the NW. This makes him a liability and there must be a reason that the Lord of Bones (or any other brutal leader among the Free Folk) has allowed him to live all this time. Craster must therefore provide more benefit than detriment to the Free Folk ... that or GRRM didn't think through the secondary and tertiary effects of Craster's behaviors. But I'm inclined to think that it's the former.

That's been confusing for me too. He kills Mance's messenger and nails his head to his door, and even then no-one bothers to swing by his house to cut his throat. Very odd

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Crater is a bastard of a black brother, probably a ranger, it doesn't need to be the Lord Commander, but he may have some noble blood in his veins, again, it can be a Stark bloodline or not, maybe some random house.

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The theory fits decently with another thread on the others, regarding the ritualistic nature of their encounter with Waymar Royce, where one of the others fight him until blood is drawn, then the rest of them move in and butcher him in concert.

His look is not unlike Starks, and there's the nature of his blood to take into account since it leads to either a strengthening of the blade of the other, or a recognition of him not being a Stark, which again leads to his butchery. Can't find the thread, but there are some nice arguments in there.

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Again and again the swords met, until Will wanted to cover his ears against the strange anguished keening of their clash. Ser Waymar was panting from the effort now, his breath steaming in the moonlight. His blade was white with frost; the Other's danced with pale blue light.

Then Royce's parry came a beat too late. The pale sword bit through the ringmail beneath his arm. The young lord cried out in pain.Bloodwelled between the rings. It steamed in the cold, and the droplets seemed red as fire where they touched the snow. Ser Waymar's fingers brushed his side. His moleskin glove came away soaked with red.

The Other said something in a language that Will did not know; his voice was like the cracking of ice on a winter lake, and the words were mocking.

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When the blades touched, the steel shattered.

A scream echoed through the forest night, and the longsword shivered into a hundred brittle pieces, the shards scattering like a rain of needles. Royce went to his knees, shrieking, and covered his eyes. Blood welled between his fingers.

The watchers moved forward together, as if some signal had been given. Swords rose and fell, all in a deathly silence. It was cold butchery. The pale blades sliced through ringmail as if it were silk. Will closed his eyes. Far beneath him, he heard their voices and laughter sharp as icicles.

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Did you guys notice a pattern in which White Walkers attacked Waymar Royce?

Like in the beginning it was a leader of this group (alpha male) fighting with Royce, one on one, one might even suggest a very fair situation (again, we do not know anything about Others and their code), and once he was wounded and blooded, they all attacked him at once...like a pack of wolves?

Just making a small contribution to this whole idea of Craster=Stark and Craster's sons=Others.

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There are theories about the others being originated from the Starks, but I think they are a tribe of First Men who suffered some ice magic and are kind of barren, so they can't exacctly reproduce normally, the First Men spread through Westeros for centuries after they arrived, maybe for milleniums.

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Did you guys notice a pattern in which White Walkers attacked Waymar Royce?

Like in the beginning it was a leader of this group (alpha male) fighting with Royce, one on one, one might even suggest a very fair situation (again, we do not know anything about Others and their code), and once he was wounded and blooded, they all attacked him at once...like a pack of wolves?

Just making a small contribution to this whole idea of Craster=Stark and Craster's sons=Others.

We know the Others have a negative vibe toward the Nights Watch. That is beyond obvious.

And we know they were wary of Waynar who the prologue goes to lengths to describe him as Lordly looking and describes his fancy jewel hilted blade.

I think it's clear (to me anyway) that the Others thought they had come upon the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch carrying a blade of "Dragonsteel" that killed many of their kind thousands of years ago.

The leader of their small pack tests Royce, and the blade, and when it's evident he was simply a young lad with normal castle forged steel, they all finish him off laughing. But yeah, I suppose it could resemble Wolf pack behaviour if you look at it from that angle.

The things to take from the prologue ultimately though are how Royce is built up as a Lordly looking Commander and how the Others are testing him and his blade.

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We know the Others have a negative vibe toward the Nights Watch. That is beyond obvious.

And we know they were wary of Waynar who the prologue goes to lengths to describe him as Lordly looking and describes his fancy jewel hilted blade.

I think it's clear (to me anyway) that the Others thought they had come upon the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch carrying a blade of "Dragonsteel" that killed many of their kind thousands of years ago.

The leader of their small pack tests Royce, and the blade, and when it's evident he was simply a young lad with normal castle forged steel, they all finish him off laughing. But yeah, I suppose it could resemble Wolf pack behaviour if you look at it from that angle.

The things to take from the prologue ultimately though are how Royce is built up as a Lordly looking Commander and how the Others are testing him and his blade.

Given how Sam managed to kill an Other by falling on it while holding a dagger I'd say it pays for the Others to be prudent when dealing with humans. After all, it only takes an obsidian dagger or arrowhead and the Other melts away in a puddle of goo.

They definitely took Waymar seriously but whether that was because they thought he was LC or the NW and possessed Dawn / Valyrian steel or was just some random human who might have obsidian on him is more the question. They don't know yet that humans have been careless enough to forget the importance of carrying obsidian.

Once Waymar is defeated they butcher him contemptuously but he is blinded and defenceless at that point: clearly his sword has shattered so is not to be feared but equally a blind man is unlikely to be able to pull and wield an obsidian dagger effectively agaisnt a swordsman at that point.

And would they expect the LC of the NW to be ranging north of the Wall apparently on his own (or with only two men if they had clocked both Will and Gared at this point)? Seems unlikely.

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Given how Sam managed to kill an Other by falling on it while holding a dagger I'd say it pays for the Others to be prudent when dealing with humans. After all, it only takes an obsidian dagger or arrowhead and the Other melts away in a puddle of goo.

They definitely took Waymar seriously but whether that was because they thought he was LC or the NW and possessed Dawn / Valyrian steel or was just some random human who might have obsidian on him is more the question. They don't know yet that humans have been careless enough to forget the importance of carrying obsidian.

Once Waymar is defeated they butcher him contemptuously but he is blinded and defenceless at that point: clearly his sword has shattered so is not to be feared but equally a blind man is unlikely to be able to pull and wield an obsidian dagger effectively agaisnt a swordsman at that point.

And would they expect the LC of the NW to be ranging north of the Wall apparently on his own (or with only two men if they had clocked both Will and Gared at this point)? Seems unlikely.

I read the books with a mind to find the clues. They are all there in the prologue with regards to how Waymar looks and behaves, which is very commanding as if he is the actual Lord Commander, with his Sable cloak and Lordly garb and jewel hilted sword.

Then he is set upon by a band of Others who are wary of him. One Other is set with the task of trying out this Commander (he is the commander of the ranging) and testing his ability and how his fancy sword behaves in battle.

Note how the Other eyes his sword, paying a lot of attention to it as Waymar has it raised high.

This is when the Others reinforcements make their presence loud and clear and surround Waymar. They watch the duel but it is only when the sword shatters that the other Others move into finish him as though some signal had been given.

It had, this Lordly commanding looking lad was just some foolish type with normal castle forged steel. Not the threat he at first seemed.

But by the way the other Others made their presence felt when Waymar had his sword raised you can be sure it was to act quickly if Waymars first blow melted clean through the first Other. The sword was a massive deal for them.

You can say as much as you like how silly it may have seemed to the Others that what appears to be the LC of the NW came bounding North with no army etc etc but it matters little.

The prologue tells this story:

A Commander of the NW who's garb is mentioned so many times to single him out as a Lordly Commander type, and who has a fancy sword on him, appeared North with two men.

The Others shadowed them, wary of the Commander and his sword. Then they trick him and come upon him to put his ability and blade to the test, which they clearly are very very interested in.

They expose him as nothing even close to the threat he appeared to be and mock him while finishing him off.